It swiftly becomes clear to Lexa that despite the missiles her people have so long feared, the Mountain Men are poorly numbered; there are a hundred soldiers, perhaps, who are trained for battle – and though their weapons are lethal and precise, Lexa and Clarke's people overcome them with relative ease. The others – the people of the mountain who cannot fight and tremble in fear of the sheer number of warriors overtaking their home, but still lack the courage to take arms and protect it – are, for now, captives within their own walls. Their mountain abode is sickening to Lexa, and she feels that she can smell the stench of stolen blood outside of and within every inch of this place, but she cannot deny that the Mountain Men have rather effectively created their own prisons, and for that, Lexa is thankful. If nothing else, she knows that escape is not an option, for these people simply have no choice but to remain; they cannot rise to the surface, and so it is safest not to try to move their prisoners.
There are perhaps two hundred or so citizens left inside those haunted, concrete walls, and Lexa's fingers itch along the hilt of her now sheathed sword, stroking anxiously with hardly restrained malice whenever she thinks on it.
Lexa has considered what to do with them (and if Lexa has her way, they will be mutilated and prodded and sliced and slaughtered, as her people have been for generations before her), but she will make no singular decision. There has been little discussion of what this alliance between Earth and Sky will bring following this battle, but if there is any hope that it may weather on, Lexa must, at least, allow them their say.
The reapers had been the most difficult to eliminate, for the reapers know where the Red comes from, if nothing else, and they had been ruthless in their fight to protect its source. The Sky People had replicated the frequency of the skin-crawling noise devise, but they had only had the time and materials to create so many more. They had utilized the few that they had and kept the cowered reapers alive, though Lexa had ordered her warriors to both render them unconscious and bind them, too, stationing a small unit to guard them and keep them tame until they could be resurrected. The others had been killed, for they had had no other choice, but despite their clouded minds and traitorous bodies, the reapers had died the deaths of warriors. Lexa draws some measure of comfort in that, for they may have presented themselves to her as enemies today, but it had not been by any choice of their own, and they are still her people.
There are some who did not survive, yes, and many of her warriors are injured, but blood must have blood, and they had both drawn the crimson from the hateful veins of the Mountain Men and shed their own in kind. Lexa spares a thought to wonder how much of the blood from the Mountain Men is actually the recycled blood of her own people, and it scalds her with a rage so hot that she, for a moment, has to stand tall and take a breath of crisp, foreign Mountain air to soothe her aching lungs and bitter heart.
Then she moves.
Lexa moves through the battlefield with purpose, calling attention to those of the wounded who can be saved, and for those who cannot, Lexa whispers in the words of her people that they have served well, and she ends their fight with her dagger to their chests. It is an act of mercy, though Lexa feels the eyes of Clarke's mother following in her path and casting judgment upon her each time.
Lexa cares little. She will not condemn her people, or Clarke's people, to the indignity of useless treatments and hours, or perhaps days of pain that cannot be relieved and will end only in the same death that she grants them now. They will not be mended. It serves no one to bring them home, now, for their footmen are weary and their horses are weak.
Still, she says nothing, for Abby is a healer – more skilled than most of Lexa's own, if she is to be truthful, though her pride burns at the mere thought – and Lexa requires her cooperation, at least until her people have been seen to. Their number in healers are few, and they need the Sky Chancellor's aid.
Abby follows Lexa's trail and hurries to the sides of all those Lexa does not spare with peace.
But as Lexa scours the blood-stained fields of the mountain, her eyes are alert, and constantly in motion. Lexa cannot spare the luxury of searching for Clarke in this disaster, for her people are looking to her and acting upon her orders to secure the area and search for any remaining Mountain Soldiers who might think to regroup, reformulate an attack. Her people are tired and wrathful and giddy with the remaining bloodlust of battle, and cannot be trusted to make rational decisions without her command.
Still, Lexa's eyes scan as far as she can see for streaks of blonde glittering in the warmth of a sun too close to Lexa's skin at the height of this mountain – for so few of her own people can make claim to such light hair, and it is a rarity among the Skaikru, too. Lexa has noticed this; has noticed the uniqueness of Clarke, even among her own people. And Lexa uses it now to try for just a glimpse of her in the wake of this battle. She requires only a glimpse, to know that Clarke is well, and knows that the constricted feeling beneath her breast will not be eased until she does.
Lexa does not need to speak with her, and even if she could, she knows not what she would say – for Lexa can imagine that Clarke is not inclined to the same elation of victory that strikes the souls of her warriors. Lexa feels accomplished, and proud, and right, for she has served her people well; she has lead them to battle, and they have won. They have fought and died and sacrificed for the spirits lost to this Mountain.
Lexa has protected her people.
There is satisfaction in that, and so Lexa decides that when she speaks to Clarke, these will be the words. These can be the only words she may offer to Clarke, for that is the only thing that may penetrate the guilt and pain and overwhelming recrimination that Lexa knows Clarke will seek.
There is only a small, irritatingly worrisome thought that Lexa cannot quell: Clarke has never wanted war. She strives, always, only for peace. Her mission on this mountain had not been for revenge; Clarke wanted only her people, returned to her safely and without harm.
Thus, Lexa reasons that the only place Clarke could stand to be is here, where Lexa is, healing those who have a chance and evaluating the losses of her own people, too, grieving for each one in turn with hardened features but a weighing heart.
Yet Lexa has not yet seen the streaks of blonde hair that her shifting, eager eyes seek to find.
It is not until the sun has long sunk beneath the hills of the mountain that Lexa hears word of Clarke, and vicious fury lights her soul when they are not the words for which she wishes.
Bellamy emerges from the underground structure with a haste and pride and determination that Lexa has long believed suits him, calling for Abby amongst the temporary graves of lost people.
"Clarke's hurt," Bellamy pants, winded from his search. "Abby, Clarke's hurt," he snarls impatiently when the Sky healer freezes, her palm gripped soundly against the arm of one of Lexa's warriors, prepared to have a laceration in his bicep sloppily sewn and bandaged in Abby's fervor to move to the next wounded fighter.
"Go," Lexa's injured warrior, Malloch, growls swiftly and heatedly, leaned against the trunk of a tree and brimming with hate at Abby's hesitation.
"No," Abby shakes her head. "No. Your life is as important as hers."
"My injuries are not fatal," Malloch condescends with a cold look in his eye. "I have survived worse, and I will survive this as well. And even if I could not, Skai Prisa is more important. Go."
Through the blasting minefields of her anger within, Lexa hears this, and for a moment stands only in startled awe. Her weeks have been spent in council rooms and war tents, hovering over maps and forming attacks – but in her tents and council rooms, Lexa has not seen this.
Lexa has not seen how her people have grown to respect Clarke as a leader; as a leader they would follow. She has not seen how they have assigned her a title in their own language; how they have granted that title worth amongst themselves.
Skai Prisa.
Sky Princess.
Malloch is prioritizing Clarke's health over his own, and over the health of every wounded man on this field. To her people, Clarke is important. She is important to them as she is important to Lexa.
"Go!" Lexa barks furiously, for now there is no excuse not to issue this command.
Both her people and Clarke's would be devastated and crippled by such a loss, and though Abby may be reluctant to determine the value of individual human forms, Lexa is not so generous. It had been her feelings for Clarke, and the perception of weakness to her people that had prevented her from ordering Abby to Clarke's side before, but that has changed with Malloch's words. Lexa has legitimate reason to fear the death of Clarke, not only for her own heart, but for the hearts of her people, too.
Lexa is being tugged and rocked and surfaced and drowned beneath the tides of her temper, and beneath waves of a fear that she cannot remember having felt in so long.
For this is Abby's daughter, and this should not take so much persuasion.
"Clarke is strong," Abby shakes her head, denial leaking from the stubborn set of her jaw and the rigid line of her shoulders. "And she has medical training. She'll be fine. Let me finish."
Lexa hisses a menacing slew of Trigedasleng curses, but knows not what she can say to convince this healer, this Chancellor, this insufficient mother, to tend to her daughter's injuries.
"She is strong because you made her be," Bellamy whispers in quiet fury. "She is strong because she is Clarke. She is strong because she carries the lives of every- single- one of our people on her back, and she does not complain, but instead she leads them where you and your stupid council have failed to," he sizzles. "She is strong because she needs to be, but even Clarke isn't strong enough to survive two bullets to the gut without medical assistance. She is bleeding out. Right now, Abby. And you can save her," he insists, voice tight with the effort not to scream, and instead trying to penetrate Abby's denial of Clarke's severely injured state.
It is the description of Clarke that breaks Lexa.
It is the image of Clarke's blood being spilt along the walls and floors of this dreaded and already blood-soaked mountain that does it; the reminder of the invaluable strength in Clarke that Lexa has never before seen in another and cannot – refuses to – lose. And so the next words from her mouth are coupled with a sharpened, gorily cerise blade to Abby's throat that appears before Lexa has even made the decision to place it there.
"If she dies because of this," Lexa snarls cruelly, a rough edge to her voice that she is familiar with making only in fights to death that challenge her command, "I will spill your blood in her name," she vows vehemently, every thread of her veins pulsing with this promise and the truth that flowers beneath it. "You will go to her. Now," she demands coldly. "Or I will take you there myself. And if what we find is that Clarke's spirit has moved to find another carrier, I will plunge my dagger through your heart so that your body may lie with hers."
Author's Note: Thanks for all of the reviews, follows, and favorites. I hope to see more of them, so that you can tell me if Lexa's post-battle mind is where you think it ought to be. Let me know if you enjoyed it, too. : )